For a long time the typical synchronization or sync and share application was defined as a system that is configured to download and upload files automatically to a client at a local computer host such as a desktop or a laptop computing device/machines. With more and more data being stored in a cloud storage these days, local storage allowances become an issue and some of the sync and share applications started to provide methods that provide users control over what files are to be downloaded to or uploaded from their local machines/systems to the cloud storage.
For corporations have a large amount of storage needs for data and files, accessing the files maintained in the cloud may impose a severe burden on the communication bandwidth between its local hosts and the cloud storage. The network traffic jam may be further exacerbated if the network connections at the local hosts are not always at the highest quality, causing severe delay for the users/clients at the local hosts to access their files that are not stored/cached locally on the local hosts. In addition, when more than one user need to access the same file maintained in the cloud storage, multiple copies of the same file may be requested and downloaded from the cloud storage even when one of the local hosts has already requested and downloaded a copy of the file, which further escalates the network congestion and requires de-duplication of files. Furthermore, the local client needs to keep on running during the entire process the local host communicating with the cloud storage.
It is thus desirable to provide a file synchronization approach for the local client that overcomes the limitations of the current designs and provides the users with instant access to all their files without requiring the files to be stored locally.
The foregoing examples of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.